Balloon burst hopes for US-China trust-building. What now?

The crisis over China’s weather or spy balloon has derailed a critical opportunity for restoring talks and building trust between Beijing and Washington – and also reveals why they are so important.

A rare opportunity for the United States and China to revive critical dialogues blew up in a plume of smoke this weekend as a U.S. Air Force jet downed a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said China’s government was using the balloon, which had traversed American territory for seven days,...